


Saltwater

by Fallowsthorn



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Missing Scene, Not Canon Compliant, The Void, kind of a combination of those two??, scene fix-it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8813530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallowsthorn/pseuds/Fallowsthorn
Summary: "So tell me," the Outsider says, "what has my dear Corvo been lying to you about?"
Emily snorts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't impressed with the version of the Outsider we got in 2, so I fixed it. This was technically written before 2 came out, but I still like my version better than canon, so what the hell. I may eventually edit this to comply with the canon setup (ie the coup, etc), but I've dithered over it for too long already.

"Emily Kaldwin, what a pleasure."

She looks him up and down. "So you're the Outsider?"

He tips his head slightly, in a mockery of the elaborate court deferences.

"Hmm. I thought you'd be...."

The floor vanishes, and the Outsider lets Emily flail for a few seconds before she manages to right herself, floating in midair gracefully. An Empress carries her throne in her eyes and her spine, not in her legal status. She grins, impish and keenly interested. "Yes, more like that."

The Outsider settles into a comfortable cross-legged position on one side of an altar that hadn't been there before. He gestures, and she takes the other side with aplomb, realizing with some amusement that without the benefit of floating, he’s actually a little shorter than her. "So tell me," the Outsider says, "what has my dear Corvo been lying to you about?"

Emily snorts. "He still thinks I don't know there's a shrine behind the fireplace."

The Outsider leans forward. His eyes shine wetly - she wonders if they're all pupil, or if the rest is just black. He also looks, for a moment, like a child at a slumber party, gossiping about schoolmates. Emily has to smother an ill-fated laugh.

"It took me a couple years to realize I wasn't sleepwalking. Rats don't bring other young girls little bone trinkets." She shrugs. "And so on."

"What did you do with them?" the Outsider asks softly, though she's sure he already knows.

"Corvo took the first few," she says, equally coy. "I tied a ribbon around the rats' necks, to see if it was the same ones every time. After that... the bones sang. They made the air heavier, I could feel it on my tongue. Like the brandywine I wasn't supposed to have.

"So I kept them under my pillow. I fell asleep listening to them murmur. To you," she says, not nearly as accusatory as, perhaps, she should be.

His lips curl into a thin smirk. "Errant Minds."

"Lying Tongues," she retorts.

He grins at her. It's the least unsettling thing she's ever seen him do, or possibly the most. Was he human, once?

Emily lapses into silence, and her strange host lets her. She looks off to the side, where a pod of whales the size of rats is swimming through the Void. Off in the distance is a rat the size of a whale. Or maybe it's a sculpture.

"Thank you," she says, still watching a reverse waterfall form the stand of a streetlamp.

He affects surprise, when she glances at him.

"Corvo would never say it, but I will. Thank you for Marking him." The words leave her in a sudden rush. She wishes she had said them sooner. "Thank you for... giving him the better choice." Then, even more quietly, "I do not think either I or the city would have survived, without it."

The Outsider merely inclines his head. It's acceptance enough for her to let go of the gratitude. Anger takes its place, like a fine liqueur: breathlessly, cloyingly sweet, long kept locked away.

"And damn you," she spits, a low and bitter counterpoint. "Damn you for Marking the man who killed my mother, who killed the only good thing to happen to Dunwall in the last fifty years. Void take you for allowing that!"

She does not blink, but they are standing, suddenly, and the Outsider has one hand cupped around the back of her neck, thumb resting lightly on her trachea. His skin is cool. Over her own heartbeat, she can't tell if he has a pulse.

She's still angry, but that, too, is draining, replaced with an ease she didn't know she was lacking. She swallows, and feels her throat work under his hand.

"Are you finished?" he says mildly. It's not a question.

She exhales, long and controlled, and loosens the muscles of her jaw. The temptation is strong to put on her court face, but - the atmosphere of the Void seems to forbid it.

The Outsider steps away. Emily has too much composure to follow his hand.

The sea-singer god tilts his head, regarding her. "I like you," he decides. "You're interesting."

She has the feeling those words have preceded everything from miracles to catastrophes.

He approaches, again, takes her hand and bows over it, kisses the back as a hidden lover would in public court. Where his lips touch, a burn blooms; by the time he's released her, she's able to inspect the Mark that now stands sharp on the tendons, copper-blue at the edges, shining as wet and black as his eyes.

"Good luck," is the last thing she hears before she fades into unconsciousness.

She wakes on her balcony, soaked with what must be rain but smells like seawater. Thank the Strictures she's alone; there's no hiding the whalesblood ink staining her hand, or, as she learns when she sees herself in her mirror, the ring of deep bruises lacing her throat. She aligns her own fingers along them; her hand does not quite bridge the gap. They are the same luxurious shade of purple as the cloth of the Outsider's shrines, and do not hurt to the touch.

Emily smiles. Gloves are in fashion, after all.


End file.
